Moshi Monsters: Moshling Zoo

The Moshlings Have Left the Internet and Escaped into the Wild!

What It Is

Moshi Monsters: Moshling Zoo is the first DS game based on the popular online kids’ community, Moshi Monsters. The game lets kids explore colorful lands and search for Moshi Monsters, or Moshlings, as they are known. When a Moshling is discovered, the player will have to perform a task to win over the Moshling and make it want to come live in the player’s zoo.

Why It’s Fun

All of the Moshlings in the zoo become virtual pets that kids care for and play with. As with most virtual pet games, kids will have to keep the Moshlings happy by feeding, grooming and playing games with them. All of these activities are done through games, including feeding the Moshlings, which is one of the most fun and frenzied activities in the zoo. When a Moshling is hungry, kids will have to prepare the Moshling’s favorite meal in a timed game that requires players to recreate the four elements of the Moshling’s preferred meal. Moshling’s definitely don’t stick to the same food groups as people because several of them love hot dogs with syrup and sprinkles, which looks as gross as it sounds. (But it’s absolutely hilarious to the target age group.)

Who’s Going To Love It

Moshi Monsters is one of the fastest growing online games with more than 50 million players from around the globe. Those fans will love seeing the Moshlings on their DS’ but kids don’t have to play the online game in order to enjoy this version.

As for ages, this is a little gamers’ game and will appeal mostly to kids ages 6 through 8. Kids younger than 6 will also like Moshling Zoo, however, there is a lot of reading required so kids will need to know how to read in order to play.

What To Be Aware Of

I’m not sure if the game is glitchy or I wasn’t playing properly, but on several occasions, the items in the game didn’t seem to respond to my actions, even though I was performing the proper task. For example, I found a Moshling who needed his banjo restrung, luckily there was an extra string lying on the ground, which I used to fix the banjo. Once fixed, the Moshling disappeared, and I was stuck staring at the fixed banjo while the game’s guide continued telling me that it needed to be fixed.

The instructional text in the game is unclear and almost blurry. This is probably just a bad choice of fonts. but it makes it hard to read and this is where the pertinent game information is displayed.

Replayability

Kids can spend hours searching for Moshlings in the wilderness before they even head to their zoos. Once the Moshlings are in the zoo, each can be played with and cared for, which should provide kids with plenty of reason to keep returning to this game.

Fun Scale

3 out of 5

It has to be fun or it wouldn’t be on Time to Play. But some games are more fun than others so here’s our scale: 1 is fun, 2 is a lot of fun, 3 is great, 4 is awesome and 5 is out-of-this-world!